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I’ll give the 2022 Pittsburgh Pirates credit for one thing. They sure do know how to bury a losing streak.

The current slide for the Buccos started July 24, just before Steelers training camp opened. So no one in Pittsburgh noticed.

Now it’s up to seven games, in advance of Major League Baseball’s trade deadline on Tuesday. As a result, they can ditch whoever they want for prospects, and no one in Pittsburgh will care.

Although, come to think of it, how many veterans do they really have to pawn off this season? Pitcher Jose Quintana, for sure. But beyond him, what other veterans are suitable trade bait that would cause a stir if they were to be traded?

Recent reports — and those dating back to March — are that the team hasn’t shown much interest in engaging in trade talks about Bryan Reynolds. That’s good. That’s the smart thing to do.

One MLB.com report suggested that All-Star David Bednar is being “shopped.” That would be bad because I think city ordinances now require that we have to play “Renegade” at both stadiums on the North Side now, at least one time per sporting event.

Regardless of who is dealt and who stays, the Pirates’ usual summer lull has plummeted them into further irrelevance on the Pittsburgh sports scene.

That said, the crowds were pretty good at PNC Park this weekend for a four-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Saturday night was a sellout. Friday was 70% full. And the other two games were a little over half-full at 19,000 and change.

Now let’s see what happens without a fireworks night or a cross-state rival in town. It looked like there were just as many Phillies fans in the building over the weekend as there were Pirates fans.

Between Billy Joel on Aug. 11, the twice-postponed hair metal extravaganza (Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett) on Aug. 12 and Metallica/Greta Van Fleet on Aug. 14, those acts may be the only reason to visit PNC Park the rest of the summer.

Then again, aside from Greta Van Fleet, those bands have all been playing the same tunes for the past 30 years just like the Pirates. The only difference is people don’t like this kind of Pirates nostalgia.

What the current Pirates are giving us right now feels like a return to the 20 years of darkness we witnessed when they failed to have a winning season from the start of 1993 through the end of 2012. This latest iteration of bad Buccos baseball now has the Pirates at 40-62. That’s last place in the National League Central with a winning percentage of (.392). As we’ve turned the calendar to August, only the woeful Washington Nationals have a worse record (35-68, .340) than the Pirates do.

Even the dreadful Cincinnati Reds, who started the year 3-22, now have a better mark (40-61) than the Pirates.

“You can’t really think about it too much,” third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes said Sunday on AT&T SporstNet. “You’ve just got to come in, do your job every single day, find ways to get better and find ways to help the team win.”

Hayes, who sat out Sunday’s defeat with a sore knee, pointed to two specific shortcomings with Pirates bats right now.

“We have to be a lot better, as a collective, not leaving guys on base. I know, this last month or so, I’ve left a lot of guys on base with less than two outs when guys are at second and third. It’s (about) being better in those situations,” Hayes said. “And I feel like early on in the game, as a collective, we can be a lot more aggressive (on) those first-pitch fastballs and things like that.”

The point about hitting with runners on base is more easily quantifiable. The Pirates have a team OPS of just .658 when it comes to hitting with runners on base. That’s the worst in the National League and 28th overall. They are also hitting .224 with runners on base, the worst in all of Major League Baseball.

They are hitting .202 with runners in scoring position, also the worst in MLB. Their .618 OPS is at the bottom of the MLB stats sheet in that category as well. In the last three games of the Phillies series alone, the Pirates managed just five runs in 29 innings. They went a combined 4 for 24 with runners in scoring position and stranded 20 men on base.

In part, because of those numbers, the Pirates are last in the National League in runs scored (363).

In terms of being more aggressive on fastballs early in counts and early in games, Hayes may be onto something there. Especially when they take the first pitch for a strike.

MLB.com stats indicate that the Pirates are hitting .169 when they are behind in the count, the worst in all of baseball. They have just 110 hits on the first pitch. Only two teams — the Milwaukee Brewers (104) and St. Louis Cardinals (108) — have fewer. The Brewers (25.2%), the Cleveland Guardians (26.3%) and the Cardinals (26.9%) are the only teams in baseball that swing at the first pitch less than the Pirates do (27.1%).

But if Pirates hitters are going to jump on the first pitch more often, they need to be more effective either on that swing or for the rest of the at-bat if they don’t successfully put the ball in play. They need to make more contact when they swing. Pirates hitters have 955 strikeouts, the most in the National League.

Don’t expect things to turn around quickly for the Pirates. Their next three games are against the NL Central-leading Brewers. Then they go on the road for nine games in Baltimore, Arizona and San Francisco. No team in the National League has more road losses than the Pirates (33).

After the trade deadline culls the roster even more than what it already is, this team will be even more about developing young players and even less about team results than it has been for the first four months of the season and the past eight years since their last playoff appearance.

When Mötley Crüe sings “S.O.S. (Same Ol’ Situation)” in two weeks at PNC Park, the irony will be too much to ignore.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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